Paradise found for Foley after years in wilderness

Same race, different horse. Eleven years after Danolis SunAlliance win, Tom Foley is back with Royal Paradise

IT IS half past 10 on Wednesday evening when the expert panel return from their mid-session interval. A room fit for a wedding in the Glenroyal Hotel in Maynooth is packed for a Cheltenham preview and the beery babble is rising from the bar at the back of the room. Tom Foley strolls to the top table, the sleeves of his jumper pulled up on his forearms, poised for the kind of work that won’t be required here.

He rubs his eyes, itching the tiredness, and waits for the questions to come again. Foley’s day will have started shortly after six and it will be well after one before his head hits the pillow. Thursday won’t wait for him to catch up. Foley is not a citizen of the preview circuit. There isn’t time to be concerned or terribly well informed about anybody else’s horses. He went to Maynooth in